Rich Hofmann

DAILY NEWS SPORTS EDITOR

I imagine I have been to a baseball game where I cared less but, sitting here in Nationals Park less than 2 hours after Harry Kalas died here, I cannot remember one.

I am sure I have seen more heartbroken people, but I will never forget Larry Andersen, standing there, crying, recalling the time in 1993 when Kalas stood in the Phillies' victorious clubhouse and sang "High Hopes," and how Andersen said he wasn't sure he ever wants to hear the song again.

I know I have seen people deal with grim public duty before, but the ashen face of Phillies president David Montgomery -- when he told a knot of reporters in a Nationals Park hallway that Kalas had died -- was indelible. And when Montgomery said, simply, "We lost our voice," the rest was superfluous.

I know that life goes on, and that Harry would be the first on to tell you that, but they would not have played this game under the same circumstances if we had been in Philadelphia -- not because it is disrespectful, because it isn't, but because, well, I cannot imagine the public grief in Citizens Bank Park.

I imagine I have been to a baseball game where I cared less but, sitting here in Nationals Park less than 2 hours after Harry Kalas died, I cannot remember one.